MBot

I can Regarding the suppression fire. It might be doable trough a mod, but as long as the AI wont react on it ( using cover ! ), it will only affect the player and be otherwise a cosmetic thing.

Unfortunatly it is pretty much 'no'. For me the gameplay of ArmA feels exactly like OFP. Some people consider that as a advantage, I feel otherwise. While OFP was revolutionary when it came out, it also was lacking in many aspects ( and I mean by design, not bugs ). While ArmA is is a overall good product, unfortunatly it has failed to improve where OFP was weak and instead improved where OFP was already good. For me, ArmA is mostly about exploring the islands and expierience immersive missions ( like The Cause by Rejn ). This is realy great stuff. The combat is pretty one-dimensional and simple because of the AI.

On the subject of cover we have mostly been looking at using objects as cover. Obviously ArmA isn't realy well suited for that. How about looking more at the aspect of terrain providing cover ? As many have noted, ArmA shines in the open areas ( well, at least it is better there than in a urban enviornment ). Still I think there is much to improve in the open long distance combat of the game. As the game is now, I don't realy see that the terrain as a big influence on combat, as the AI fails to utilise tactical advantages that terrain can provide. As I see it, AI on high ground has no advantage over AI on low ground. The AIs are mostly lieing exposed on the ground and exchanging shots until one side is death or do a uncoordinated lonesome flank move/death charge every once and then. What I would love to see are AIs on a hill actualy move behind the ridgeline and search a position that alows them to open fire while exposing only little body to the enemy. The active use of vertical movement ( go crouch to shoot, go prone when under fire ) would be of high importance for the AI. Right now they are not able to rise in order to shoot above a object/terrain. As I have mentioned earlier, a new movement type like "fluid stance" would be very usefull for this. A movement that allows fluid height modification of a stance. When prone, fluid movement from "pressing against ground" until high chest, and from "cowering crouch" till complete stand. This way you and the AI could precisely expose only as much as necessary for the situation and it would allow to quickly drop down into cover again when under fire ( oposed to crawl backwards from a ridgeline which takes too long to take cover ). The implementation of AI using cover would also pave the way for the implementation of surpressive fire, which at the current state of the game would serve not much use. Those AI routines would also translate into hull-down and turret-down positions for tanks, wich would greatly increase the realism of armored combat. I have no idea how difficult it would be to add the necessary AI routines. But as there are already Line of Sight checks for the AI units for shooting and spotting, the basics to determine good fighting positions seems to be there. I would realy like to see cover and surpression take a mojor part in the gameplay , as right now I don't see much realism in the combat of ArmA.

Just played it, great mission. Here are some comments: + Atmospheric intro + As usual top notch voice acting/scripts. + Good overall mission concept with well chosen elements. Calm introduction, showing off the defense line to the player, combat, being outflanked, retreat etc. Appropriate radio transmissions with emotions where they fit. + I like the fact that you are creating a meaningful and realistic order of battle ( in a scale that is of importance to the player ). Your mission have a overall battle plan that look realistic. In general a realistic feeling for the whole operation. + I like that you are concentrating on infantry warfare with some armored support, not the full mechanised war. + "Just a single soldier in a big war" feeling. + Good use of autosave - The briefing map had lots of good informations with front line etc. ( what I really like ), but was a bit clustered and hard to read. - After you arrive at the front line your leader says something like "you and me join first platoon", then he runs away. The first time I followed him, while it seems I was supposed to stay there ( I thought he would lead me to first platoon, but I already was ). - The tanks don't get destroyed on every try. Sometimes the Abrams run over your lines. - The AI generally was unable to fight from their position. They started to go prone in the open, move around aimless or storm the field. I know that this is nothing you can influence, but the ArmA AI is unable to fight from superior positions with the use cover, which is a shame. It kind of hit the suspense of disbelieve to watch the AI do stupid stuff. But that is something that affects all defense missions. - Your contact at the end of the mission ( Miguel ? ) was standing a bit off the road and was initial hard to find. - The end cutscene was a but lush ( I saw a idle T-72 for most of it ). I understand that it depends on what actually happens then as it is a "realtime" cutscene. Perhaps some shots of advancing RACS troops would have been good ( or whatever ), basically something that doesn't interact with the actions of the mission itselfe, something over which you have full control ( but it still shouldn't look displaced, it should 'look' like part of the action of the mission ). Overall a very good mission with a great concept, that is hampered a bit by the limitations of the ArmA AI. You realy have talent and I am looking forward for your next installment of "The Cause" Edit: And performance was good even on my medicore rig ( 3500+, 1GB RAM, GF6800 ).

Great, looking forward to play it when I get home

Rejn, The Cause - First Patrol is simply brilliant ! By far the best ArmA mission I played until today. It very much reminds me about the old OFP demo mission, which also had that great "simple grunt in war" feeling. I loved the general setup of the mission, the selection of location, the overall battle plan and as I mentioned the fact that you are a simple soldier trying to keep pace and stay alive. On top of that comes the superb voice acting. Now that you have reveiled your great talent, you have to keep delivering I am looking very much forward to your next mission.

That is great. I hope this not only applies to dying but also getting out the binocular or changing weapon.

Let me play the devils advocate... Perhaps Codemasters is going to license the Crysis engine for their Operation Flashpoint 2 Ok I shut up now

Let me play the devils advocate... Perhaps Codemasters is going to license the Crysis engine for their Operation Flashpoint 2 Ok I shut up now

What I want to do is ending a coop once all players have left the target area. I don't want to use the "BLUFOR not present" activation because there are also AI units in the team, and I fear that if one of those gets stuck it will prevent the mission from ending. So basically I search a trigger that fires if no human players are present. Is there a easy way to do that ?

Tough the funny thing is it depends on how far into a animation cycle you are when releasing the sprint key. Sometimes you will stop imediatly, sometimes you will keep running for a couple of meters. There is no way to control this in the game or plan ahead, it is pretty much luck. So in the end it is not designed realism, but rather a side effect of a medicore movement system.

Thank you both, I will give it a try later.

I agree, reloading while walking ( but not running ) wouldn't be unreasonable. At least for smaller weapons. But I have the impression that the rigid animation system doesn't allows this. Would be great though. Also the ability to reverse animations without having to wait for the current one to finish would be great. As when you take out your binocculars and immediatly want to put them away, you should be able to press 'B' and imediatly reverse the process, without having to wait for the binos to be completly brought out first. The same applies to changing weapons or stances. As it is right know it is extremly cumbersome and not very user friendly. Since OFP I have felt that controlling your character is not very well designed ( try going prone with your binocculars brought out and enjoy the show... ).

I agree with the general tone of the thread, the campaign in ArmA is awful. After the excellent CWC and Resistance it was a huge disapointment. While I could respect the decision to portray a anonymous war without any in depth characters, the lack of atmosphere, imersion and most importantly mission quality has totaly broken the campaign. It is a pity as the initial setting is quite good, there has been much potential. After playing the incredible CWC campaign ( or even the great demo mission ) I got such a fan of OFP that I kept looking for community missions, mods and buyed the Resistance addon later ( and ultimatly ArmA ). The campaign was what got me hooked. If I was new to ArmA, I would have probably shelfed the game after the campaign and never get it out again. I spent some bucks for a couple of hours of medicore entertainment. Nothing bad about that, but that wouldn't have build any customer loyality. Fortunatly I started with OFP and know what is possible, but how many new players were turned away ? Let's hope that BIS are working on a kick-ass addon with the real campaign.

Wonderful, that A-10 looks great. I think the Hog is a good choice as it is one of the few aircraft that make sense to be player controlled over Sahrani. The AV-8B makes sense as a support aircraft from the grunt perspective, but as a playable it is way too fast and Sahrani too small ( and limited vievdistance for the majority of player make things even worse ). The Su-25 would have similar problems btw, great as a support aircraft from the receiving perspective, but too fast and flying too high to controll yourselfe. Planes that would fit perfect on Sahrani would be small COIN type aircraft. I think the OV-10A would be a real great choice. It operates slow and low enough to fit into the ArmA world. It has almost non existant avionics, it's all point and shoot. With its M-60 MG's, Miniguns and rocket pods it is primary intended to combat infantry, so it directly interacts with the primary gameplay element of ArmA. And being in service in countries like the Philippines, Venecuela and Colombia, it would perfectly fit into the armed forces of South Sahrani. Anyway, to come back to the A-10. As a Lock On player I have a small nitpick, don't fry me for this one. The A-10 can only use AGM-65 Mavericks on the stations 3/9 ( those outwards of the mainwheel ). All other stations are not wired to support the AGM-65. Looking forward to that great Hog.

On the subject of cover I made an interesting observation. Set up a fight between two squads, everything on standart and yourselfe as the last guy in one squad. Best is you make this in a area with lots of rocks as they provide good cover oportunitys. Once the fight starts, stay a bit back and observe what happens and listen to your AI leaders commands. You will notice that the AI breakes formation without order from the leader and sometimes men will actualy move for positions behind the rocks. All this without the leader telling them to do it. Compare this to when you are the leader of the squad yourselfe. Your AI fellows will strictly stay in rigid formation even when under fire. So the AI will behave different when under player lead and show less selfe preservation. I wonder why this is so and if there is a possibilitys to maken them equal "smart" as under AI lead. It wont make a real difference on the fight tough, as the cover the AI seeks is only very basic and often sparely. It wont relly help them to fight, as they don't fire from covered positions. They are either in the open and in the fight or behind cover and out of the fight. Also in the time they spend moving around they often get themselfe killed. And like I said it doesn't happen very often anyway. Still I think the fact that the AI behaves different under AI command than under the player is interesting.

Another thing that I think really adds much to the character of the island is the fact that BIS has named geographic features like mountains, valleys, bays and forests. The names are well chosen and help to make Sahrani more lifelike. It just feels that Sahrani could actually be a small island somewhere in Latin America, the Caribbean or the middle Atlantic. Well done.

Overall I like Sahrani, it is filled with lovely details. I also like the different climates with the unique building styles. I especially like the mediterranean areas of the South and the alpine highland on the eastern part of North Sahrani. I also like the small island around Sahrani that encourage some exploring. Did you know that the small island in the north ( Antigua ? ) has a small grass airstrip ? While I would like to have more large cities ( Bagagno ! ), I think that considering the inability of the AI to fight in them, Paraiso, Ortego and Corazol are enough ( also in size ). One problem I have is the amount of mountains. While the mountains add much character to the island, they also use up massive amount of space on the map that is really usable to play, especially in the north. Some mountainous areas are great, but the north has more mountains than not. The mountains also tend to "funnel" game play or create multiple closed small play areas. This reduces the overall possibilities on the map. More open areas and plains ( not necessary flat but also rough or "hilly" ) would have been nice. I also miss some large forests. Most forests on Sahrani are rather small and the larger ones are mostly on mountainsides, which further reduces their usability. Alltough I know that Sarhrani is larger then the island in OFP, I can't get rid of the feeling that it is rather small. Perhaps it is the fact that the north and south are practically separate islands, that mountains use up lot of space or increased view distances. But most likely is that ArmA simply lost the revolutionary feeling that Malden and Everon had back then. In the end I like Sahrani. It is well made with lots of details and it has character.

Have you also tried to set the x to different values than y ? Because I need to select a higher Y sensitivity than X in the ArmA options in order to actually get matching X and Y handling while playing. Anyway, I hope you will find the solution.

When I first started ArmA I felt the mouse moved kind off weird. It was because somehow the sensitivity of the x and y axis were not the same in ArmA, causing the feeling of LAG. I then adjusted the sensitivity of one axis to match the other one ( in the ArmA options this actually means that the x and y sensitivity are different ). It feels very smooth now. I have no idea why default the mouse setup was so wrong, as my 1024*768 resolution has a standart ratio. Perhaps the guys at BIS have wideview monitors and set the default sensitivities to match their setup ? Anyhow, perhaps that might be your problem.

Well I wouldn't call diving for the ground and miss for 4 meters realistic. I can do that after all It's not that some inertia while running wouldn't be good. The "going from running to ground" animation is pretty well done and indeed needs some space. The problem is that this animation will only kick in at the end of every sprint animation cycle. This means that you can't plan ahead where you will land. If you press prone at the end of a sprint animation you will go down pretty well, but if you do it at the start your character keeps running a couple of meters which is pretty annoying. You simply can't plan it, it is pure luck.

I just wanted to add that the AI doesn't realy using cover is the biggest complaint I have about ArmA. While I absolutley love the game for the many things it does excellent, I feel it doesn't realy represent infantry combat realisticaly. A lot of good things have already been written about what the AI should do better, so I don't want to repeat all that. What I just wanted to add is that I think that animations and the maneuverability of the AI has quite a impact on the subject. I agree that first priority is that the AI needs to be able to recoginse when it needs cover and where it can find it. This alone seems to be a massive task. After that I think the AI needs to have a much bigger selection of movements to use that cover. In current ArmA I have observed some situations where the AI actualy used cover, like moving behind a rock when enemy contact is made. This happened very sparely, but the basics seems to be there. The problem is that the AI is missing the selection of proper movement ( and pathfinding to a degree ). If the AI needs to stand up, turn around, run back, turn around, run behind the rock, turn around again and then goes prone, it takes a good 10 seconds to achieve this. When under fire this is simply too long, and the guy has been shot long before. Also if that AI wants to open fire again, he will move back in the open again to do so wich means he completly gives up his cover again. So the Ai realy has to learn not only to find cover but also to fight from it. And currently it is missing the movement options for that. First I think the AI needs to be able to lean, just as the player can. This is a very basic and effective way to fight from cover. Leaning allows the AI to quickly get back into cover when under fire, opposed to the time it takes to walk aside from cover, shoot and walk back again ( plus some lenghty turning and change stance animations ) that most likely gets them killed. Â Then there should be a quick way to slighly adjust the height in any stance in order to shoot over a obstacle and quickly get back into cover again. You can say that the AI could always go to a higher stance to do this ( this would be a good start as it doesn't do that right now ). But the problem is that changing the stance is a slow animation, it simply isn't quick enough to pop up, fire some rounds and get down again when under fire. It's similar to leaning, the key from firing from cover is to be able to get down quick again once someone starts shooting at you. Changing the height of your stance slightly would also allow you to lying down flat when prone or raise your torso slightly to shoot over the grass or a ridgeline. Then there should be a way the AI could maneuver more natural and quick, like when diving to cover or change position to new cover. I already mention it that AI movement is very robotic in ArmA ( stand up, turn around, walk, turn around, crouch etc. ... ). This not only destroys the imersion as it looks a bit silly, it also makes the AI very vulnerable. I think it has a lot to do with the animation system, that can only do new animations once the former are complete ( people only dying after done reloading, not beeing able to go prone again until stand up is complete, not beeing able to put away binoculars until binoculars have been completly get out, release sprint button and character sprints another 3m until animation is complete etc. ). Perhaps the whole animation system has to be rethought in order to provide more realistic AI behaviour/visuals.

The higher viewdistances are very nice. The sprint animation is pretty long and like all animations in ArmA has to be completed first before you can do something else. Try tabbing your sprint key once and see how far your character will run. As an advancement, pushing your sprint and 'go prone' key in quick succession. In the worst case your character will run for another 3-4 m until he hits the deck. It is hard to judge in combat as it depends if you press prone at the start or end of a sprint animation cycle. Often I run way past my intended cover or end up lying in the field 2m in front of my cover.